Blood Price - By Tanya Huff Page 0,23

I cautioning her for? I am not going vampire hunting.

"I can afford the best. Daddy pays me a phenomenal amount of guilt money. He ran off with his executive assistant when I was in junior high."

Vicki shook her head. "Mine ran off with his secretary when I was in sixth grade and I never got a cent out of him. Times change. Was she young and pretty?"

"He," Coreen corrected. "And yes, very pretty. They've opened a new law practice in the Bahamas."

"As I said, times change." Vicki pushed her glasses up her nose and sighed. Vampire hunting. Except it wouldn't have to be that. Just find whoever, or whatever, killed Ian Reddick. Exactly what she'd be doing if she were still on the force. Lord knew they were under-manned and could use the help.

Coreen, who had kept her gaze locked on the older woman's face, smiled triumphantly and dug for her checkbook.

"Michael Celluci, please."

"One moment."

Vicki tapped her nails against the side of the phone as she waited for the call to be put through. Ian Reddick's throat had been missing and Celluci, the arrogant shit, hadn't thought to mention whether it had been found or if the other bodies were in the same condition. She didn't really care at this point if he wasn't speaking to her 'cause she was bloody well going to speak to him.

"Criminal Investigation Bureau, Detective-Sergeant Graham."

"Dave? It's Vicki Nelson. I need to talk to Celluci."

"He's not here right now, Vicki. Can I help?"

From her brief experience with him, Vicki knew Dave to be, if possible, a worse liar than she was. And if he couldn't lie convincingly for important things he certainly couldn't do it just to protect his partner's ass. Trust Celluci to get out before the heat came down. "I need a favor."

"Shoot."

The wording became crucial here. It had to sound like she knew more than she did or Dave might clam up and retreat to the official party line. Although, with luck, the acquired habit of answering her questions could last around the department for years. "The hunk of throat missing from the first body, did anyone ever find it?"

"Nope."

So far so good. "What about the others?"

"Not a sign."

"Not even last night's?"

"Not yet anyway. Why?"

"Just sitting here wondering. Thanks, Dave. Tell your partner from me that he's a tight-lipped horse's ass." She hung up and stared at the far wall. Maybe Celluci had been holding the information back to ensure he had bargaining power in the future. Maybe. Maybe he quite honestly forgot to tell her. Ha! Maybe pigs would fly, but she doubted it.

Right now, she had more important things to consider. Like what kind of creature walked off with six square inches of throat as well as twelve pints of blood?

The subway roared out of Eglinton West toward Lawrence and, with the station momentarily deserted, Vicki strode purposefully for the workman's access at the southern end of the northbound platform. This was now her case and she couldn't stand working with secondhand information. She'd see the alcove where the killer allegedly disappeared for herself.

At the top of the short flight of concrete stairs, she paused, her blood pounding unnaturally loudly in her ears. She had always considered herself immune to foolish superstitions, race memories, and night terrors, but faced with the tunnel, stretching dark and seemingly endless like the lair of some great worm, she was suddenly incapable of taking the final step off the platform. The hair on the back of her neck rose as she remembered how, on the night Ian Reddick had died, she'd been certain that something deadly lingered in the tunnel. The feeling itself hadn't returned, but the memory replayed with enough strength to hold her.

This is ridiculous. Pull yourself together, Nelson. There's nothing down in that tunnel that could hurt you. Her right foot slid forward half a step. The worst thing you're likely to run into is a TTC official and a trespassing charge. Her left foot moved up and passed the right. Good God, you're acting like some stupid teenager in a horror movie. Then she stood on the first step. The second. The third. Then she was on the narrow concrete strip that provided a safe passage along the outside rail.

See. Nothing to it. She wiped suddenly sweaty palms on her coat and dug in her purse for her flashlight, then, with the satisfyingly solid weight of it in her hand, flooded the tunnel with light. She would have preferred not